The Kamloops Chamber of Commerce is renewing a call for mandatory commercial truck driver training.
This comes a day after B.C.’s Auditor General said that commercial trucks are involved in 19 per cent of fatal crashes, despite only accounting for three per cent of all B.C. vehicles.
Chamber president Joshua Knaak says in some cases, truck drivers can get commercial licenses within as little as three days.
“When even the trucking industry is telling you that what’s being done is not enough, somebody should probably listen. So this is a Kamloops Chamber policy that then went to B.C., and the B.C. Chamber has been advocating for this for the past two or three years,” Knaak says.
“The issue came up again actually, we were contacted probably six months ago, there was a tragic accident between Revelstoke and Salmon Arm that again appears to have resulted from a driver who had inadequate training. There were criminal charges that were filed. So I mean this is something that needs to be addressed.”
Knaak says B.C. is lagging behind the rest of Canada in mandatory truck driver training.